FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional optical network. The network 100 comprises a plurality of interconnected network rings 101. Each ring includes a plurality of network elements 102. The optical network 102 is managed by a centralized management system 103, coupled to the network 100 in any number of ways. “Network element”, as used in this specification, refers to an entity capable of adding traffic to and dropping traffic from a network ring 101. Each network element 102 maintains a table 104 of data necessary for facilitating communication with other network elements. Copies 105 of these tables are maintained at the management system 103.
It is important for the data in the management system table 105 to be in sync with the data in the corresponding network element tables 104. There are two conventional ways to maintain the tables in sync. A first conventional way is for each network element 102 to send a notification to the management system 103 indicating that a row in its table 104 has changed. The management system 103 uses this notification as a trigger to synchronize it's table 105 with the network element's table 104. However, notifications can be lost. Plus, this method is not sufficiently scalable because the changes, especially configuration changes, are usually caused by the management system 103. The management system 103 thus is sent the notification unnecessarily. In addition, the management system 103 can become inundated with notifications for large networks with numerous network elements.
A second conventional way is for the management system 103 to periodically poll the data from the network element tables 104 to re-fetch the rows in the network element tables. However, if the data is voluminous, or if the network has numerous network elements, synchronizing the data is time consuming and burdensome on the network resources.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an improved method and system for synchronizing data on a management system with data on network elements in an optical network.